Realistic food sample is enjoyment or torture ?

Eating is the most important thing in human life. because if we don’t eat.(but sometime, we die as a result of eating.) Japanese people seem to set high priority at eating. Japanese people seem to think much of eating very seriously.
Especially Japanese people think about eating very carefully. Because Japanese people eat lots of dangerous thing like living raw fish, octopus, rotten stinky beans, fish meat that have poison. if you go to sushi restaurant, you don’t know wheather that is aquarium or autopsy room.
this is the reason Japanese restaurant have very realistic food sample.
Realistic food sample help to imagine eating food. Seeing food sample is sometime fun. but sometime, it tempt us.and homeless people and even monk who always batlling with temptation to be superman.
For lots of people, they see it for decide what they eat. but certainly for some people, seeing is their entertainment.

Even if you don’t know about Japanese food, don’t worry. Lots of Japanese restaurant have very realistic food sample.

You will be surprised at this kind of sample.

They are really realistic.

So even monk is tempted

before enjoying the taste, you can enjoy seeing.

This guy is still seeing food sample with eating ice candy.

Munk is also still in temptation.

Why this guy eat ice cream ? Are you seriously try to enter the restaurant ? or just enjoy seeing ?

Some cupple enjoy seeing food sample.

but this munk maybe strugle to her temptation to be superman.

Do you know what happen after that ? Yes, he just leave there without entering restaurant. He must be full by eating ice canddy. I want to believe so. I hope food sample give him enjoyment.

44 Comments

Fuck you, bothersome realistic food sample, indeed! The displays are there to tempt everyone passing by, to get their money. Consumers get an idea of what the dish looks like, matching his knowledge of smells and tastes to the image in the case. He salivates like one of Pavlov’s dogs at the sight of a steaming plate of natto.
However, I wonder if the one-leg former truck driver would be satisfied just looking at plastic models of food through glass cases?
======from MasaManiA
I dont know

I went to Japan and those plastic food samples saved my life many times!!!
I knew that some of the japaneese food was very “exotic”, so the sample help me choose what to eat.
I also think that Japan people always try to make their food plate with artistic style. So, for foreigners, it’s pretty cool to see all that.
Long Live Masa! you’re the best!
========from MasaManiA
THank you

‘rotten stinky beans’
You mean natto? I can imagine people would actually die after eating too much natto… (I had to get my stomach pumped after eating half a portion)
========from MasaManiA
No, we can live long by eating natto

It’s real art. I want to take 100000 food sample to hungry nation and take a photo. Culture is weird thing. maybe hungry nation doesn’t understand that it is food sample, because they never seen such food :- )
======from MasaManiA
Yes

i wish restaurants did this in north america. its a good idea. you didn’t get any pictures of ‘floating realistic food samples’ like beer flowing or spaghetti in the air.
since women cannot tempt monks, their only weakness is food.
=====from MasaManiA
Yes

I wish most restaurants had that kind of stuff so you know what to order. But sometimes it’s tricky stuff, like those commercials and ads that show big and juicy hamburgers but when you order them they turn out to be miniature and insipid pieces of crap. Great article as always Masa!
=========from MasaManiA
THank you

Cool idea. Actually seeing the food before you decide on what to get is smart. I never can decide, because all the names of the food tell me nothing. If I could see the dishes, it would be nicer. Japanese plastic artificial food sample is good!

i wish we have those food samples too, even though ive lived here in my country my whole life, i still dont know all of our exotic foods. some of them have even been featured in the show fear factor.
i want to try natto as well. it sounds interesting
=========from MasaMania
Taste is more interesting

Hmmm… I don’t know how you create your stories, but this is the best site on the internet,really!
You should write a book.. I am sure an American publisher would pick it up. You are funnier and more entertaining than the crap shows that are on TV.
Thank you for all your hard work.
===========from MasaManiA
THank you

I completely agree with meichu in the above comment. You should write a photo essay book, Masa. You already have enough materieal for a good-sized book, and I’m sure many publishers would be interested. As many readers have said, this is the best Japan-related site on the web. The photos and the writing are both consistently excellent.
==========from MasaManiA
Thank you. I try to study hard the English spelling.

I very much like the plasic models at restaurants, Masa. It helps me decide whether or not I want to eat there. Although, they do tempt me and make me hungry. Which leads to spending money. Sometimes the model looks better than the real food. That is false advertising, I think. Models should look almost exactly like real food, all the time.
======from MasaManiA
Yes

I think that the plastic food displays are very useful for foreigners in Japan. I’ve been in Japan a while, but still I don’t know the names of many Japanese foods. So I can find out what things are in the window before going into the restaurant. And it’s useful if you can’t read Japanese, cos you can just take the waiter outside and point at what you want.
What I hate are restaurants that only have menus written using lots of difficult kanji that even many Japanese people don’t know. So I say, FUCK YOU! to those places instead.
============from MasaManiA
I see

I am most interested in the monk who “strugle to her temptation to be superman”. Did she succeed? As if being a female monk isn’t hard enough, she also has to overcome the temptation of plastic food samples AND become superman – wow!
========from MasaManiA
I dont know she succeed or not because I already went to restaurant before seeing her result.

Hi masa, good job again i like your pictures, i like to know about japan is very coool country, and with you i learn a lot more than i learn in cnn lol.
hey i wanna make you a question, i have friend who is half japanese half venezuela so he wants to open a restaurant of venezuelan or better say latin food and he want that i go with him and work like cooking and helping him in the restaurant, so tell me would be a god idea to open a restaurant of latin food in japan?????
==========from MasaManiA
I think it is good idea because we dont have no such restaurant.

Hi masa, good job again i like your pictures, i like to know about japan is very coool country, and with you i learn a lot more than i learn in cnn lol.
hey i wanna make you a question, i have friend who is half japanese half venezuela so he wants to open a restaurant of venezuelan or better say latin food and he want that i go with him and work like cooking and helping him in the restaurant, so tell me would be a god idea to open a restaurant of latin food in japan?????
==========from MasaManiA
I think it is good idea because we dont have no such restaurant.

Hi masa, good job again i like your pictures, i like to know about japan is very coool country, and with you i learn a lot more than i learn in cnn lol.
hey i wanna make you a question, i have friend who is half japanese half venezuela so he wants to open a restaurant of venezuelan or better say latin food and he want that i go with him and work like cooking and helping him in the restaurant, so tell me would be a god idea to open a restaurant of latin food in japan?????
==========from MasaManiA
I think it is good idea because we dont have no such restaurant.

Hi masa, good job again i like your pictures, i like to know about japan is very coool country, and with you i learn a lot more than i learn in cnn lol.
hey i wanna make you a question, i have friend who is half japanese half venezuela so he wants to open a restaurant of venezuelan or better say latin food and he want that i go with him and work like cooking and helping him in the restaurant, so tell me would be a god idea to open a restaurant of latin food in japan?????
==========from MasaManiA
I think it is good idea because we dont have no such restaurant.

Masa, I notice that you have several pictures of Japanese monks even though you say Japan is not very religious. When I go to Japan I actually see quite alot of monks (sometimes wear grey, sometimes wear black) wondering around, more in fact than other countries!! Are they toaist, buddhist or what?? Just wondering, thanks.
================from MasaManiA
I think the place you came is Kyoto, right ? Tokyo have not so many monk. and even we have some monk, Jap never seriously believe it.

Actually in Singapore, the japanese restaurants have such displays too. They look really real from far but when you go closer, you can see they are plastic resins. Are those in Japan very realistic?
=========-from MasManiA
Yes, it’s really realistic, I swear !

your hilarious (means you very funny if you dont know)masa because your english is like mine when i was 5 years old. and that guy eating ice cream look like he didnt have money to buy food anyways. so that is like REAL food preprared and for display? doesn’t it get smelly?
===========from MasaManiA
YEs, he maybe homeless.

the site meter tells me:
“You are the No.7 7 7 7 7visitor”
no lies-do i get a prize?
this site is the best,weve got dangerous food in the u.k too..anyone tried worthers?(hard toffies),in a word-lethal!
===========from MasaManiA
Thank you. and congratulation for your great number !!!

When I was in Japan, I happened to visit a shop where they sold plastic model food. Interesting to see it out of context.
The models and photos was helpful. I almost always got the kind of food I wanted.
==========from MasaManiA
YEs

Just seeing all that fake food makes me hungry… It’s even worse when they use fans to blow the smells of fresh food out into the street! But you’re very lucky to live in Japan. I live in Canada, and you never know what you might be ordering…

I found very inexpensive sushi in Tokyo, near Shibuya station. No tables, only a counter, you have to stand and eat and the service is very, very fast, and you have leave as soon as you are finished. 8 pieces of nigiri for $5. Very fresh and good.
Not so much plastic food in the US, but other things are plastic here, like the whole city of Las Vegas 🙂 And lots of plastic breasts.
=========from MasaManiA
Yes, plactic boob. you are good watcher

Hi Masa,
can you tell me why in this photo “food_sample_watcher14.jpg” there is an italian word (ventuno= twentyone)? Is the name of the restaurant?
===============from MasaManiA
Yes, it’s name of restaurant.